“Cause I took your love and made it my own
You took my love and made it your own
And now we’re left with nothing for our own”
This phrase is stuck in my head since the first time I listened to this song.
How many times in your life do you fall in love with someone? How many times is it reciprocated? Does the reciprocation look similar to your expectations?
You fall in love and if you are lucky enough, you get into a relationship.
You receive love from your lover, happiness from being together, love starts holding you and you begin holding it too without thinking all of it might spiral down. You do not think what you share will end.
How many times in your life do you break up? You love and if you are lucky enough, you and your lover will see forever together. But many of us end up with loneliness.
The lyrics of Hanita Bhambri’s debut single Nothing For Our Own tells a story of love. A story that begins with happiness and ends in hurt. At first, It might sound like a cliche because we all have heard about this kind of story. But the song takes you through good melody and an even more interesting video.
First of all, the production of this music video is excellent. A very kinfolk inspired production with pastel colours blending with the warm hues of the background looks beautiful. Imagine a girl in a blue dress sitting on a yellow Vespa, or the subtle pink t-shirt blue jeans combination that never goes old. Throughout the video, people wear pastel colours and somehow they all look the same: beautiful and elegant.
Second, welcome to the world of heterosexual couples. I was wondering if some of us might imply that the lyrics talk about heterosexual love only because there is no gender in the lyrics. The lyrics suggest the fate of relationships: loving and breaking in hurt. Until the end, it feels like love resides in hetero-domain only, like it stems from it and appears in the video as reminders of it’s normativity through hetero couples having chai, sharing laughs, sitting super close to each other.
Lastly, I like how the music video ends without answering my curiosity of what happens to the relationship. Why did she leave in the first place? Will they come back together? What were their reasons to fall? I leave you with some questions I collected while I watched the video: how do you love when your love isn’t considered ‘normal’? What is normal love? Is it, like in the video, easy to get back to your lover in reality when your love is under societal scrutiny? What does it take to get back together then?
